A Muse and a Maze

Writing as Puzzle, Mystery, and Magic

The follow-up to the bestselling Maps of the Imagination, connecting puzzles, mystery, and magic to the art of writing

With his characteristic genius for finding connections between writing and the stuff of our lives, Peter Turchi ventures into new and even more surprising territory. In A Muse and a Maze, Turchi draws out the similarities between writing and puzzle making and its flip side, puzzle solving. As he teases out how mystery lies at the heart of all storytelling, he uncovers the magic—the creation of credible illusion—that writers share with the likes of Houdini and master magicians.

In Turchi’s associative narrative, we learn about the history of puzzles and their obsessive quality, and that Benjamin Franklin was a devotee of an ancient precursor of sudoku called Magic Squares. Applying this rich backdrop to the requirements of writing, Turchi reveals as much about the human psyche as he does about the literary imagination and the creative process. This much anticipated follow-up to Turchi's bestselling Maps of the Imaginationis a joy for readers (and writers!) of any genre, helping them navigate the fine line between the real and the perceived, between the everyday and the wondrous.

Praise

“Although Turchi’s knack for drawing connections can seem like a sleight of hand in itself, his writing is consistently engaging, lively, and thought provoking. The interactive element is also a delight, as there are actual puzzles scattered throughout (answers are provided in the back) to demonstrate the challenges and rewards offered by puzzles—and by good writing. And though Turchi’s volume seems most tailored to writers, readers and puzzle lovers should find much of value as well.”
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— Publishers Weekly

“One of the country's foremost thinkers on the art of writing....Turchi argues that writers are like magicians who aim to lead us to a state of wonder.”
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“Puzzling and playful, an assembly of sources and texts that invites readers to find the meaning they’re searching for.”
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— Pacific Standard

“To leave readers slightly bewildered, to leave them with some questions answered but also with the understanding that other questions are unanswerable, to challenge readers to be satisfied with uncertainty – that’s exactly what Turchi encourages in this book.”
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— Numéro Cinq

“The wide-ranging connections he draws are convincing, provocative, and not infrequently funny, drawing the reader into a labyrinth of reflection where each turn brings a new surprise.”
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— Santa Fe New Mexican

“Turchi combines puzzles and discussions of magic tricks as well as conventional literary analysis to show how arranging information to deepen the sense of mystery can make writing more interesting.”
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— Chicago Reader

“He’s done it again. Peter Turchi, the best-selling author who inspires artists, designers, and anyone trying to understand how to capture an audience’s imagination through storytelling, has written a book that aligns the art of literature with puzzle creation and illusions.”
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— World Literature Today

“A Muse and A Maze offers sharp insights into the craft of writing, illuminating the process of puzzle-making and mystery-building that makes reading novels so absorbing and rewarding. ”
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“Turchi invites us to think about books as mysteries unfolding in time, giving us clues that we piece together.”
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— Washington Post

“But as much as A Muse & a Maze seeks to explore the inner workings of the craft of writing, the book isn’t interested in pulling aside the curtain on the art form’s intrinsic wondrousness. If anything, Turchi’s collection of citations, motivations, riddles and games yields as many questions as it answers.”
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— Mountain Xpress

“Informed and informative....thoughtful and thought provoking.”

— Midwest Book Review

“A MUSE AND A MAZE is my favorite book about literature. The prose is engaging, and the mind behind is filled with insight, depth and a great sense of play. Anyone who likes books should read it.”

— Chris Offutt, author of No Heroes: A Memoir of Coming Home

“The tension between these concepts—puzzle and mystery—forms the center of Turchi’s learned, funny, and uncategorizable book, part writing guide, part literary criticism, and part playful compendium of tricks, games, and problems.”
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— Colorado Review

“In A Muse and a Maze, Peter Turchi skillfully draws the reader through some of the most fundamental and challenging questions that writers face, tricking us into learning more about ourselves and our writing process by making us think we are learning about something unrelated to writing: games and puzzles. But herein lies the brilliance of his approach—we drop our writerly defenses and open ourselves to receiving information via a new angle, and before we know it, revelations about writing and process become apparent.”
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Called "one of the country's foremost thinkers on the art of writing" by the Houston Chronicle,Peter Turchi's books include A Muse and a Maze: Writing as Puzzle, Mystery, and Magic, Maps of the Imagination: The Writer as Cartographer; Suburban Journals: The Sketchbooks, Drawings, and Prints of Charles Ritchie, in collaboration with the artist; a novel, The Girls Next Door; and a collection of stories, Magician. Turchi's short story "Night, Truck, Two Lights Burning," listed as one of 100...